Care Robotics in Aging Japan: Creating Technical Solutions for the World’s Demographic Problem?

Japan is an ideal country for studying the effects of population aging that cause a wide range of societal issues, ranging from labor shortages and increasing pressure on the welfare state, to growing old age-related poverty and the need for improving productivity to sustain economic prosperity. The research question, which the scientific exploration at hand addresses, is what kind of technologies, generically referred to as robots, may be able to mitigate care problems and generate new solutions, and even further, improve the general health of the Japanese population or serve as a blueprint for other aging societies. Therefore, the case of Japan can be utilized to describe which strategies decision-makers face, as well as the challenges and opportunities caused by such a demographic transition to cope with the effects. The Japanese government prioritizes the large-scale introduction of robotics in areas of worsening labor shortages and daily life. The New Robot Strategy (NRS), a five-year policy-action plan compiled in 2015, is the new tool to coordinate the support for actors in the robotics industry, to finally leverage the predicted large market potential. Whereas policy-makers are concerned with creating a better infrastructure for the creation of versatile robots (e.g. regulative considerations, channeling of subsidies), the bureaucracy (e.g. METI, MHLW) is supposed to supervise the policy implementation and to link important public and private actors of robotics development (e.g. universities, robot-makers, research institutes). The coordination of this triangle of three stakeholder groups will be vital for the success of large-scale implementation of robotics to lessen the burden on caregivers, improve average health and wellbeing and exploit the economic potential of the silver market. Rapidly aging societies are a worldwide demographic phenomenon. Whatever feasible technical solution for care Japan invents for its own society is likely to have an impact elsewhere in the world. If the development of care robots works in Japan, it will likely be of fundamental relevance to other aging societies and may incidentally come to be one of the next export successes for Japan. It might be a chance for the government to kill two birds with one stone: taking care of Japan’s elderly and the Japanese economy at the same time. Whether there is a realistic chance this unique technical-driven approach to solving social problems to work out will be at the heart of this academic inquiry

Exploring the sail training voyage as a cultural community

Ed. D ThesisStudies have demonstrated that participation on a sail training voyage, as a structured educational activity that is more than mere adventure (McCulloch et al., 2010: 661), enhances self-constructs, and inter- and intra-personal skills. Many studies have followed an outcome-based approach to measure various self-constructs at pre-, on- and/or post-voyage intervals, however, there has been limited investigation as to how these outcomes may be generated; or how they may be ‘laminated’ in participants’ personal and social development, and thereby influence skills for life and work, such as social and emotional skills and supporting educational attainment (Feinstein, 2015). The origins of modern day sail training voyages are to be found in the traditions and practices of the age of sail, representing a rich socio-cultural and historical setting for participants to explore the voyage experience. This study takes an ethnographic approach to explore a six-day sail training voyage as a ‘cultural community’, and how this concept may generate beneficial outcomes through apprenticeship and guided participation (after Rogoff, 1990; Rogoff and Angelillo, 2002). Few studies on this topic have extended their scope of interest beyond the young crew participants; this study engages with all of those who sailed on the voyage, comprising twelve 12- and 13-year old girls, two teachers, and the full-time and volunteer sea-staff (and the researcher as a participant observer). This voyage-based case study uses a range of methods, including visual methods, as pre-, on- and post-voyage research activities, complemented with a post-voyage photo elicitation activity and semi-structured interviews to construct a rich, detailed account of the study voyage